Finding the Missing Number Game

OMG... I want to cry. I'm so, so, so excited! J not only interacted with us BUT.. He initiated a game.

YESSS... Today is the day. He has never done this before. He initiated a game - Finding the missing number. He started by arranging the blocks and asking Hubby and I, "What is the missing number?" This calls for a celebration! Yes! A Celebration *Jump Up and Down*... IT IS JUST SO EXCITING!

J was arranging the blocks and asking Hubby and I,
"What is the missing number?"

His idea came from his motivation - LIFT. In some shopping malls, there were missing buttons. That is how he has gotten this idea.

However, this significant milestone "Game Initiation" has come a long, long way....

I remembered back in May 2015 (It was 1 month before he turned 3). He was not receptive to any new learning at all. While other children his age were already into ABCs and 123s, for him, other than the ABC Song, he was totally not interested in "A for Apple, B for Boy", he was only interested in, just looking at lift when we were in any shopping mall or playing "Open and Close lift door" with his 4 red long and 8 blue short megablocks. At that point in time, I was feeling very discouraged. Like any new parent, I was in fact, very worried or rather kiasu, with his academics. In my mind, I was thinking, only the word "DEAD" and "He don't know how to read ABCs and 123s. What if he continued this way when he is 6, 7 or even 10 years old"? Of course, that was before reading the book Autism Breakthrough by Raun K. Kaufman.

I had always read about Montessori Education, which also believe in Child-led learning (Still, I was not totally child-led as you can see from my thoughts above) and after my friend introduced me to the book Autism Breakthrough, my belief in Child-led learning became stronger. I finally understood what his isms meant to J. I changed my belief and perspectives - Be child-led. J will surely not be like this forever. Since he loves lift, let's join him and go into his world - That was my turning point.

Indeed, the knowledge that J has - letters, numbers, counting, colours, signs, vocabulary (types of lifts, panel doors, buttons, etc), language development (he is now into 1 loop conversation from just 2-3 words back in May 2015), interaction when we talked about lifts, eye contact, safety when using lift, taking turns to go in and out of lift - all comes from the one motivation he has - LIFT. And he did not go through any formal learning, e.g. sitting down to learn in a classroom or doing table learning, because he could not sit still due to some sensory issues. He learnt all these through looking at lifts in shopping malls or during our playroom sessions.

The one thing that never fail to amaze me is when we are child-led, let the child be your teacher, let him teach you, learning becomes unlimited. The sky is the limit.

Before I know J's condition, I never know that there are so many things to learn from a lift. The lift is definitely one of the greatest inventions in all mankind. Very soon, this little man will surely learn about history and science (pulleys and axles) of lift. Woohoo! And the tears that I have today is, the tears of Joy...

Epsom Salt Bath (Part 2)

In early January, J had his first Epsom Salt Bath (Refer to my post here). About 2 weeks later in later part of January, hubby remembered that J had a swim tub (Clever Hubby!) that we had bought when he was an infant. He suggested that we can use it for J as the current bath tub is too small for J and J isn't fully soaked in.

And here it is! J enjoyed his Epsom Salt soaking in his swim tub about 2 to 3 times a week.

Enjoying his Epsom Salt Soaking

Not only that, even I can fit into the swim tub (benefits of being small-built) and have a good Epsom Salt soaking. Epsom Salt soaking is not only good just for eliminating toxins and heavy metals said to be high in people in the ASD spectrum, it is also good for adults too.

It helps to relax our body, relieve stress and muscle tension, pains and cramps. Hubby will also soak his tired and sore feet in the tub (He is too big for the tub!). Epsom Salt is also claimed to have anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties.

Thanks to Hubby's clever idea and J's swim tub, the swim tub has not gone to waste and now the whole family can enjoy the Epsom Salt Bath and Soak.

Little Artist @ Work

Today, J got his hands dirty with paints, brushes, sponge and water. This is one of his favourite activity since he was an infant.

Initially, he had wanted to do water colour painting. His painting has always been just colouring and scribbling. He is never interested in painting on objects, except on paper. Even though it is just colouring and scribbling, he is able to interpret what his artwork is about (which is worth celebrating). When he just draws in circles, he could still tell me that he is drawing the MRT Network Line (Now I know in J's mind, our MRT Network is so confusing... lol).



J loves to paint with brushes

After painting with brushes, J would like to get his hands on the paint. Maybe, he loves the sensation of touching the paint. Today, he had his hands printed on papers.

After printing his hands on paper, he showed me his dirty hands

Lastly, J sponge-stamped numbers. There were lots of interaction, initiated by J, when we were doing this activity. When he stamped number '4', he said that he is 4 years old. When he stamped number '5', he said Froggy is 5 years old. When he stamped number '6', he said that his baby is 6 years old.

His painting activities will always end in putting his hands in the water and go round and round, seeing the water changed colours and squeezing the sponge. He hand-painted the wall too. He said, "Today, I am painting my house."

Stamping, sponging and hand painting

Painting is a good sensory activities for children, whether neurotypical or special needs. Painting not only invokes and foster creativity and imagination, they learn a lot about primary and secondary colours and what happen to colours when mixed up, texture of paint, helps in hand-eye coordination, brain or cognitive development and emotional expression. For children on the ASD spectrum, painting can be one form of Art Therapy.

Perhaps the greatest benefit is the fact that painting provides us and our children a great platform to bond and spend valuable time together. Today, it has been an interactive session. The whole activity lasted about an hour and a half. In fact, the activity we had today helps in the development of Interactive Attention Span, which is one of the important goals in the Son-Rise Program® Social Development Model.



Painting on easel on 14 Nov 2016
We created an art corner for J.

Dear parents, I would encourage you to let your little ones paint. Do not be bothered by the outcome of your child's paint works. If getting messy is of your primary concern, do like what I did - I put J in the toilet (My toilet is very airy) and after the paint works, it is toilet washing time.

Most importantly, enjoy the bonding, have fun and invoke interaction by talking about your child's works (Remember, no criticism but PRAISE AND CELEBRATION).

If your child is non-verbal, painting can help to teach new words and even working on eye contact when your child asks you for the colour.

If your child has sensory challenges in touching the paint, do not force the child, help the child to explore and feel the paint. Take a step at a time!

A Pleasant Surprise

It has been a busy period because of the CNY preparations and CNY visits. Hence, I haven't been updating on this blog for almost a month. CNY just ended on Saturday, 11th Feb 2017.

On 6th Feb 2017, I had a pleasant surprise. That day was also J's first time having an almost full day outdoor after weeks of Son-Rise playroom time.

We were at Coffee Bean at East Coast Parkway. J was patting his favourite toy Froggy to sleep. He was on a high chair. He wanted to put Froggy on the pram, which was very, very low. And he said to me, "Mummy, can you push the pram nearer? I can't reach."

OMG! I was simply amazed that he could say such a sentence, so clearly and spontaneously! We had stopped the once-a-month Speech Therapy (ST) in December 2016. So after the Son-Rise Program® Startup that I attended towards the end of November 2016, hubby and I were his Son-Rise Therapist. In the past, if the same would have happened, he might just say "I want the pram", which to us, it is still not fully functional and it is quite robotic because everything will just be "I want...". But instead, on that day, he used such spontaneous sentence. How nice and wonderful to hear it! I can't help wanting to hear it again!

This beautiful sentence, my hubby and I believe, was the result of constant prayers and the changes we had made while doing the Son-Rise Playtime with J.

During the Son-Rise Program® Startup, one of the suggestions was to "Limit Outdoor Activities" for our child and put him in the Son-Rise playroom. We did just that ever since I attended the program.

Benefits of a Son-Rise playroom

For many children in the ASD spectrum, it can be very challenging to filter out external distractions. Thus, limiting their ability to focus on learning and interaction with us. The purpose of the Son-Rise playroom is to make it as easy and enjoyable as possible for the child and the parent to focus on interaction so that both of them are making the most of their time together.

Time and time again people with autism have expressed the great anxiety they feel due to a disorganised sensory system, making seemingly simple things like a trip to the grocery store incredibly overwhelming. So this is an important one: do your best to decrease the sensory overload your child might experience. You can do this by either eliminating/limiting or modifying trips to stimulating environments. For example, don't take your child grocery shopping (or the park, etc.) for now, or take him much less often, or take him only on off hours, when it is much more quiet and less crowded. This is an important time to be an open-minded detective because something that may not seem stimulating to you can be incredibly challenging for your child. - Adapted from the book "Play to Grow" by Tali F.Berman & Abby Rappaport

What I have done

Since the Son-rise program in December 2016, hubby and I had made it a point to limit J's outdoor activities to help him decrease his sensory overload. There were times, before making those decisions, that we weigh the pros and cons. I do felt, for some activities, it seemed a pity that J could not be involved. In the end, for the sake of J, I had to do what I think would benefit J.

• J stopped his once-a-month Speech Therapy (ST). We felt that there is no point in spending 2 hours, rushing and travelling to-and-fro to the ST. While travelling, there will be lots of sensory overload. By the time we reached home, I felt I had run in a marathon. Since J had improved using the Son-Rise technique for speech the past year, we have decided to stop. We are also intending to stop his EIPIC since the Son-Rise Development Model helped J alot.  
• J stopped attending his Thursday Co-op group. (This was a pity because it has all NT children whom he can learn from. But no! He don't learn from them. Unfortunately, it does not come naturally for a child with ASD to learn from others because they focus on objects, instead of learning from others).
• We only go playgrounds during off-hours, with no children or at most 1 child around.
• We go to places that has no crowds.
• We only go nearby places like NTUC and hawker centre (on a weekday morning).
• If the place is crowded, we would just quickly go to the shop that we need to buy our stuff and quickly evacuated from the place.
• We stopped bringing J to church (hopefully it is temporary) for the moment. Hubby and I take turns to go to church each week (We still need to be spiritually fed). Whoever stays home with J will do Son-Rise playtime with him. Even though J is not going to church, we do devotion, Praise & Worship and prayer time with him at home.
• Of course, more Son-Rise playtime with J.

This CNY is also a time when hubby and I decided to adopt some changes, different from what we had done in the past years, in regards to J.

• J only visits his grandparents.
  So, we agreed that for this year, other than the grandparent's house, for any other house visits, hubby and I would go to our own relative's or friend's house. This is so that we can each spend quality social time with our relatives or friends.
  
  In previous years, with J around, we could not even sit down and talk to our respective relatives or friends. We would have to follow J wherever he goes. For kids in the spectrum like J, he is always away from the group. For J, he is obsessed with lifts, so we would follow J to go and see lifts. In the long run, this isn't beneficial for us and it became very frustrating.
  
  There were times J would have sensory overload as he is highly sensitive to sound and he became "not himself" and started hitting and scratching people.


• Get J a room.
  Hubby had his mum prepared a room for J so that he can be away from the crowds if he needed to. Before heading to both of our parent's house, we pre-empted J that there will be a room if he finds the place noisy.
  
  True enough, while at my mother-in-law's place, J was in the room with hubby almost the whole day. There were times he came out of the room. With the noise level and overwhelming human faces, J did start to hit hubby's uncle.
  
  At my parent's house, there were fewer relatives visiting my parents this year. So perhaps it helps.

The Outcome

Hubby and I felt that there has been an improvement in J, ever since we made the changes. The latest achievement was that beautiful sentence "Mummy, can you push the pram nearer? I can't reach."

In the past, while the family was out at any public places on weekends, where it would be very crowded. We found ourselves putting out fires because of the challenging behaviours like hitting, scratching and screaming that J would exhibit, especially in crowded places or places that challenged or over-stimulated his senses.

Even in a typical co-op, I spent huge amount of energy managing behaviours. When just going to church, hubby and I felt like we had run a marathon. In fact, when the child is always on "Fight" mode, it leaves little energy for the parent or child to focus on interaction, learning and other life skills. Plus, these kind of behaviours bring J a lot of negative attention.

However, when I am home alone with J, things seems to be peaceful, even though there were days of meltdowns.

For ourselves, hubby and I each have our own days out with our own friends, without J. When hubby is out, I will be with J at home and hubby will do the same when I am out. We felt happier and fulfilled.

Of course, I pray that the changes that we made will be temporary. Very soon, we will be able to go out anywhere and to church as a family together and enjoy one another's company.

Baking Time!

One of J's favourite activity was to bake. I am glad I had introduced baking to him.

Teacher's Day Gift
Baking Blueberry Cupcakes for his teachers
at his Early Intervention Centre last year

If you google the "Benefits of Baking with Preschool Children", there will be lots of articles on that! But for our child with sensory challenges especially to touch, it is good to expose them to baking. Baking alone encompasses many benefits, in regards to motor skills.

• Hone their fine motor skills - Eye-Hand coordination or even hand strengthening when pressing dough or even squeezing the icing bag.
• Stimulate the senses, feeling the texture of the different ingredients - butter, egg, flour, sugar, etc.
• Bilateral Coordination when rolling the dough, sifting the flour, etc.
• Spatial perception and Organisation Skills, when cutting cookies or sifting the flour into the bowl and not out of the bowl.
• Listening and Understanding Instructions.

Fine motor skills, Bilateral Coordination,
Spatial Awareness, Organisation skills
Listening and Understanding instructions

And there are those benefits pertaining to

• Pre-literacy skills - When we read from the recipe, the child realises those are words. Or even introduction of the different baking accessories.
• Math - Learning the numbers and fraction from the recipe, e.g. three-quarter and counting, e.g. the number of eggs we are going to put. We can even learn about Time while setting the timer - How long is the baking time?
• Social Interaction and Communication - When we talk to our child about the recipe that we are going to bake. Or he might ask questions. We can even talk about where we can sell the cakes, cookies, etc. Invoke some "What-ifs, What happens, What do you think?"
• Science - What happens when the flour, butter and sugar are mixed together?
• Responsibility - Teaching about washing hands before baking, wearing apron and cleaning up.
• Patience - Waiting for the cake to be ready.
• Safety and Danger Awareness - Showing him how hot oven is and why we should not touch the oven.

Teaching about Danger Awareness, Responsibility and Patience

And all these are even enhanced when our child does it with another friend. That will also teach them about turn taking, team work and the list goes on.

Most importantly, Having fun and bonding while baking. I love it!

Of course! There were those initial times when he might have some sensory challenges in touching those ingredients. Well! I believe in exposing him. The thing is, if he insists that he does not want to touch certain ingredients because of some sensory challenges, I would not force him and I will just do it for him. And then, tell him the goodness of how it feels. And try again the next time.

That happened initially, he did not want to touch the flour. I did not force him and I told him how soft flour feels and what flour is used for. I then invited him to try and touch it. There were the first few times when he said "No". I just left it as that and I tried again the next time we do baking. And eventually, he was willing to touch the flour.

The key thing is to be persistent, be loving and understanding and of course, not to be afraid of messiness.

J's Special Friends

Since Nov 2016, J would treat his 4 special friends as his "Precious". At times, he might put them to sleep. There was once he took my hub's windbreaker and laid it properly on top of my drawer organiser. After which, he would laid his 4 precious on top of the windbreaker with care, just like what it was shown below.

In case you can't see who they are. From left, there is Kangaroo. It is a tissue box cover. Next is a toy baby. He named her "Felicia" (Such nice name!). Third is a puppet froggy, which he brought it wherever he goes. Lastly, is a grey tom cat, which is no longer working (cables are spoilt and the cat is "bandaged" with black tape) but he just treated them as his precious.

This is only a beginning milestone of his social play - being caring and loving to friends in his play. This is a little progress that I celebrated and which, I am proud of.

However, almost 2 years ago (I knew about his autism in Feb 2015), all these were totally impossible and unthinkable. At that time, since he was 18 months old, he was only interested in playing with 8 blue megablocks and 4 red megablocks, mimicking the opening and closing of lift doors. He never was interested in building train tracks but used the train tracks to make into 4 panel doors.

After reading the book Autism Breakthrough by Raun K. Kaufman, Hub and I started joining him. We were "lifts" after shower, when he would be carried to the room to change or when daddy piggy-backed him. We even mimicked the sound of lift door opening as he was being carried or piggy-backed. I talked to him anything about lift, telling him about how the lift goes up and down, axles and pulleys, button panels, panel-doors, numbers, etc. 2 weeks later, my tears fell when he started to connect train tracks, instead of just making train tracks as lift doors. And few weeks later, he started to build upwards using megablocks. Mid-2016, daddy used Lego to help him build tall buildings with lift and he was receptive to that. These were some of the progress. And the amazing thing is J learned his numbers, alphabets, counting and reading through lifts - the importance of child-led learning - Let the child teach you. We soon realised there are so many things to learn from lifts.

Friends... Do not lose hope! Believe in our children! They are getting better. J's interaction and social awareness skills may still be in progress. At this point, he still could not relate to people yet. But I know, he will get there some day. The photo was the 1st step to being socially aware and it is one of the milestones to be celebrated.

Currently, another 3 friends are added to his team of precious. They are robot, gingerbread man and the dog, which he named "Bark" because it barks.

Epsom Salt Bath

J had his first Epsom Salt bath this morning. In the evening, I added Lavender Essential Oil. As he is quite big for the small bathtub, his chest was partially submerged. Hence, I had to use a watering can to pour the water over his chest and he enjoyed the soaking and I enjoyed the bonding time because I will ask him to count the number of times (approximately 50 counts) I poured the water over his chest. And there were lots of laughter. Showering became one of his favourite, amidst all the meltdowns, tantrums and behaviours for the day.

With the Lavender Essential Oil and Epsom Salt bath, it will be recommended to have the soak in the evening, which can aid in his sleeping. It is best to use hot water at first to dissolve the Epsom Salt and then, top up with cold water so that the water is warm. Use a handkerchief or wash cloth to rub his body so that the pores can be opened.

J felt so relaxed. And he looked forward to showering time. Showering is never the same again!

Epsom Salt Bath

Why Epsom Salt Bath?

Epsom Salt, also known as Magnesium Sulphate, is composed of Magnesium and Sulphate. Both of these nutrients are low in children on the Autism Spectrum. Many articles on Epsom Salt claim to help in clearing toxin and heavy metal, most believe to be very high in people in the ASD Spectrum. In any way, one of the main components of Magnesium is to relieve stress, which I felt is much more important and helpful. For children on the Autism Spectrum, many times, they find themselves unable to fit into the rules of this world, thus causing them to have very high stress level. They are either in freeze, flight or fight mode. Stress is very harmful to the body. Hence, the Epsom Salt bath, coupled with Lavender Essential Oil, also help in relaxing them. You can read more about it here.

Even for adults, Epsom Salt seems to be very beneficial for us, especially for parents like us, whose kids are autistics or even other special needs parents. Now I regret not having a bathtub! You can read more about it here. We can even used Epsom Salt for beauty, household and gardening.

Where to buy Epsom Salt?

Epsom Salt can be purchased at iHerb and they deliver it right to our doorstep.

This is the Epsom Salt I bought

Read more on Epsom Salt Bath (Part 2).